CallumPar

I know what you mean. After a quick check, I think I’ve been to every home game, but it feels like we’ve not had many. Looking at it, we had long gaps without a home game at points, maybe that’s part of it? Was 4 weeks without a home game late Aug to late Sep. Then was another 4 weeks until our next one. Then we had 3 in November. Guess that’s part of the issue, we’ve played 9 home games and 3 of them were back-to-back in one month. Other than the 3 in a row, I think you’d be close to 2 months between trips to East End, if you missed just one game. We played 1 home game in September, 1 in October and 1 in December. Only counting league games for this, since nobody wants to remember cup games…

If this is on, watch us get 2 keepers injured, since it’ll be the first time since September we don’t have 2 on the bench.

Think the Queens Park game takes priority for rearranging, as it was originally due to be played first. As it stands, we’ll have 2 midweek games - one of the rearranged games, plus Inverness. So not too bad right now, assuming we get players back from injury and have a squad that can cope.

Who wants to tell him? Also, Thursday is now expected to never get above freezing temperatures, with a low of -5, according to the BBC. It’s safe to assume our flooded pitch will freeze. Game will be off. Will be rearranged for 10th Feb.

If you think we’ve got it bad, Falkirk fans invaded the pitch to celebrate scraping a 2-2 draw with Edinburgh City today…

Yeah. I think I’m just very aware we need to sign players and get results now. We can’t afford to say “we’ll be fine in a month, if players return”

That’s us just 3 points clear of 9th now - and we play them next week. Will be a very crucial week.

I’m genuinely surprised it’s not something that drainage/sunshine can solve before kick off today. But, it’s probably not bad for us to have the game off. Doesn’t sound like an issue that’ll be fixed ahead of the freezing temperatures this next week. To be honest, I’m not sure it’s worth fixing at all, without investing in a whole new system one summer. Seems to be an endless stream of issues with the USH and I’d imagine a lot of it is due to age of the system. A new system would hopefully cut the running costs and improve reliability. Although, it’s a cost we probably can’t afford in the near future. Feels like we could spend thousands fixing this, just to get another issue the next time we turn it on - that’s what seems to keep happening anyway. Hopefully Fisher can be back in contention and we can bring another player or two in over the next week or so anyway. We have a free weekend on the 10th February, so do Queens Park. Airdrie will too, if they lose to St Johnstone next week.

Would a burst pipe not only flood the areas around where it’s burst? Honestly would have thought that was obvious. But feel free to continue with nonsensical conspiracy theories, if it helps you get through your day. edit to add - the picture’s also around the halfway line, so not a corner.

Game confirmed as off. Let the meltdowns commence. I’ll be back later to laugh at it all. Sure we’ll get some wild conspiracy theories/demands for an investigation.

If it’s off, I would be interested to know how much water there is, and why there’s an assumption it won’t drain in the 5 hours between the inspection and kick off. Forecast is good and we haven’t had issues with our drainage, as far as I’m aware. Not too fussed either way though, if I’m honest. We’re KY12. It’s a requirement in the top flight, I believe, so we’d need to fix it if we went up anyway. Wouldn’t be a choice. I’m sure our previous board were on record saying it was a 5 figure cost per match to use the system, because it is so dated. Think it uses oil or something, which has soared in cost since it was installed.

Yep. I’ll be raging and demanding an investigation.

No requirement for undersoil heating at this level, so we can just not turn it on and save a lot of money. As I say, I’m not sure why we even had it on for this one in the first place. Also don’t think anyone outside of Airdrie fans would be remotely interested in your conspiracy theories about a Dunfermline v Airdrie game being postponed. Our USH is obviously very dated and not fit for purpose, it’s failure has caused a few games to be off in recent years (including Falkirk at New Year last year). Think it’s time to either give up on it, or invest in a new one. Just waiting for the pitch to pass the inspection after all this…

Before this thread is flooded with conspiracy theorists, I’d like to clarify that there’s no way this is deliberate. It was very frosty in the area from about 6pm to midnight last night, that’s obviously melted and turned to liquid. It’s poor, and I’m not trying to deny that. But if we were going to be sabotaging the pitch because of injuries, we’d have started that long before now. I have no idea why we would have wasted money on undersoil heating, to get this game on, but it seems like we tried to. Having said all that, it was very nice of Dundee to loan us their groundsman for the week, to show us how to get as much water as possible to sit on the pitch.

We’ve done it. We’ve found a way to make the pitch unplayable, so we have time to get guys back from injury. Well done to all involved.

Looks like he wore 64 at some point, to be fair.

Squad number 64? Interesting choice.

This is a two pen gif kinda day. I can feel it.

Fagan-Walcott has champions league experience. Played about 30 seconds against Leipzig. Superstar.

Really good interview, in my opinion. Reassuring to hear about the conversations he’s had with the board and the fact they’re looking to accelerate deals for targets that had been discussed for next season, if possible. I’d still prefer experience. But we need someone in immediately. If experience isn’t available right now and someone else is, who we believe is good enough, we have to compromise and bring in the guy that’s available.

This is exactly it. If we’d sorted out at least one defender to come in for the opening of the window, I don’t think we’d have lost to Queens Park. The run of form we’re now on has seen us drop from well clear in 4th (think it was about 5 points), down to 6th and only 6(?) points above bottom. If that doesn’t have the manager/board desperate to get more players in, we have a real problem. We’re also now dealing with the consequences of forcing players to play 90 minutes when they’ve got a niggle/tightness. Also had players returning and being asked to get straight back into playing 90 minutes every week, just to get another muscular injury. But, due to the size of our squad, we have no other options. Some of it has been bad luck, I’m not denying that. But some of it seems to be due to the lack of squad depth, forcing players to do too much too soon and ending up out mid/long term again. It’s annoying. If we’d actually brought in depth in defence in the summer - when everyone could see we needed it, we could focus on our poor attack/goalscoring return. But I just don’t think we can address that this window, as we need to focus on sorting out the defensive options.

When Potter was here, he was very popular with the players. His spell as manager was obviously really poor, but the players all absolutely loved him and I do believe they all genuinely wanted to do well for him. When he left for Sunderland, I know the players were all really sad to see him go. I honestly have a lot of time for Potter. He did a lot for the club and even played through injury during admin times, to try and talk the kids through the games. In other games, he was named as a sub and would stand behind the goals (where players warm up), organising the young defenders. Rovers players that Potter was involved with at Dunfermline would include: Ross Millen, Shaun Byrne, Callum Smith. Not sure if Aidan Connolly maybe played for a very brief spell while Potter was still a coach as well. Andy Barrowman was also one of Potter’s first signings as manager. Lee Ashcroft would be another one that worked with Potter at Dunfermline when he signs. I’d imagine Gullan, Dabrowski and Stanton possibly worked with him at Hibs too?

At the moment, we have zero defenders available. That’s worse than the midfielders not being great together. Sorting numbers in defence also allows Hamilton/Otoo to move back into midfield - where they’re better and the team are better with them there. The root of the problem you’ve described is the lack of defenders, as Hamilton/Otoo have rarely been unavailable to play, they’re just having to play out of position due to the defensive issues. Signing midfielders to keep Hamilton/Otoo in defence doesn’t seem like a decent solution to me.

You leave the wages available, until that spot in the team is filled. I would honestly rather get 2 fairly decent CBs in now though, than wait until we’ve played another 2/3 games with a makeshift backline, for a good defender. As I’ve said, we should have had a defender ready to come in very early in the window. Simple as that. As soon as Comrie went down last Friday, it became even more desperate and we’re now needing at least 2 CBs as soon as possible. The lack of preparation, despite the fact Breen/Benedictus have missed 75% of the season, is very disappointing and we definitely need to be asking why something wasn’t sorted, to ensure someone was coming in when the window opened. For 2/3 months, we’ve had guys playing when they really shouldn’t be, including guys returning from injury too soon, and had so many players out of position. The urgency/need to add to the squad as quickly as possible was there for all to see.

I get that. But we should have been prepared for this window and made sure there were guys coming in early. It’s not like we can only start talking to clubs about who is/isn’t available when the window opens. We’ve had these issues for months and we’ve known that we need more bodies in. Even John Hughes was prepared for the January window 2 years ago - Lawless was announced in December as a player who was joining in January. We’ve done the same with Callum Morris in the past. I think Coll Donaldson was sorted very early January. For whatever reason, we’re not as organised as we should have been. It’s as simple as that. We were linked with 2 players last week. It’s been 6 days since we finished the game with Miller Fenton, Chris Hamilton and Josh Edwards as a back 3 and we’ve denied interest in one of the players and more clubs are now reportedly interested in the other. Ashcroft hasn’t been involved for Dundee all season. If we wanted him, a deal should have been agreed for when the window opened. If that wasn’t possible, we should have been finding someone who was available. We can’t afford to wait until the end of the window, or we’re going to be in a relegation battle with a team of kids playing through injuries and out of position.